The use of mobile devices such as cellular telephones and other devices with cellular data connectivity is proliferating. Almost everyone has some sort of mobile, data-enabled device, and some people have multiple such devices. Users can access different networks using a single mobile device, and can access voice, text, and multimedia data from various network-accessible and Internet-accessible entities. Furthermore, mobile device complexity is increasing, with more and more advanced and power-efficient processors, display interfaces, and applications to provide user experiences like never before. Consequently, people are using their mobile devices more frequently, and have larger bandwidth requirements for data, email, voice, etc.
This increased usage puts a tremendous strain on cellular networks that provide wireless communication services. In certain situations, cellular networks may become congested and may not be able to provide desired transfer speeds to requesting devices. For example, a user may attempt to play a video on their smartphone while in a network cell that is being highly utilized by many devices, and the network cell may have insufficient capacity to supply the data needs of all the demanding devices. In situations like these, video playback at the user device may be slow or interrupted, or may be presented at a relatively low resolution. This may lead to user dissatisfaction with the cellular network.
In another situation, a data allowance provided by a cellular network provider for a user device may have been exceeded and as a result the data speeds provided for the device may be throttled or reduced. This may lead to the same user frustration, in that video playback is slow or interrupted for a reason that is not apparent to the user.